Category Archives: Real World Adventures

AT the corner of Bell and Madawaska Streets, 12 year Veteran Crossing Guard, Tim, is reportedly retiring soon. Somebody wanted to save money by eliminating this position. But several Town Councillors raised their voices at last Monday’s Town Council meeting. Ted Strike said his daughter was hit by a car at that crossing one day when a crossing guard was sick and nobody replaced him. Lyn Grinstead said her children use that crossing because there is a crossing guard there. Dan Lynch said something to the effect that -kids will always be kids and no matter how many adults warn them that it would be safer to walk one block east and cross at the John Street Light, they’re still going to take the short cut.- Dan Lynch also wondered if grade 12 students who might want to go into law enforcement might volunteer to learn and serve as backup crossing guards as part of their volunteer hours requirement for graduation.

I went to talk to Tim during lunch time on a bitter cold day in January. Yesterday it was +3˚C /+38˚F Today it’s -19˚C with a wind chill more like -27˚C. In the five minutes I stood and talked with him, at least a dozen high schoolers, out on their lunch break, used the crossing. Tim said, “You should see it on a nicer day-”

Traffic in Arnprior used to be a joke. Ten years ago a friend told somebody, “Rush hour in Arnprior, you might see half a dozen cars in twenty minutes…” Now you might spend twenty minutes trying to get a break to turn across traffic out of a parking lot.

Another thing Tim told me, several years ago one of the crossing guards was hit by a car. They were happy to see him when he began working at this job because he’s tall and easy to spot when he’s wearing his Orange jacket or the vest with the reflective orange X.

Four more guys cross the street, moving so quickly that they blocked out the crossing guard in the time it took me to aim and shoot this photo.

** Katherine Albrecht** @ http://www.antichips.com and http://www.spychips.com has been telling us this for years: The “Smart” R.F.ID chips being injected under the skin of our pets, which are mandatory in many places, and politically brow beaten on caring pet owners in many more places (“Don’t you love your pet?”) are causing Cancer and lots of people know this.

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Here’s a score card on “Smart” stuff:

Smart meters broadcast your private information to utility companies who can identify the make and model of everything you have plugged in on the circuit the smart meter is monitoring. They can then turn down or turn off many appliances from wherever they are. I heard that several senior citizens were killed in Texas during a heat wave when their local electric company turned down their electricity to the point where it shut off their air conditioning and basically cooked the home bound in their own homes. The Utility’s defense? “It’s the middle of the day, what are they doing home?” — I haven’t had time to check this out.

Sunday, 20 March, 2011. Last night’s full moon was the closest it’s been in 18 years. I tried to capture it on a small video camera. The effects were neat. What I saw in the electronic viewfinder was a thick wide halo. What came out here looks like moon flakes or petals flaking off. In all fairness, I realized I was shooting through a bush whose branches haven’t sprouted yet (heck, we’re way up north, somewhere around 45˚N, right around Ottawa, Ontario, Canada).

-The ‘still’ shot/clip from the video looks a little more purple than the actual video did. So the photo changes/looks different every time I do something else with it. (& I haven’t gone near photoshop yet.)

-We reached 50˚F/10˚C – last week and then dipped back into ‘brrrr’ territory. And an ex-military ‘psychic spy’ says that we do not live in one of the safer areas of Canada, but right now it’s about +2˚C/+36˚F & I can’t see any snow lingering outside the window. We’re supposed to get 5-10 cm (uh-between 1 & 4 inches?) of snow tomorrow. But today there’s the teasing possibility of Spring in the air.

Wednesday, 19 January, 2011. 12˚F/-11˚C @ the Ottawa airport @ 9 am/ -19˚C w/-27˚C wind chill in Petawawa according to the weather network. Arnprior’s in the middle there somewhere, and walking around with about 5 layers of winter clothing on, turn the wrong corner and it feels like you’re naked against a constant wind. And when the naked feeling leaves, you’re sure the damned layers are holding the cold in instead of keeping it out.

The year 2011 bloomed foggy and damp in Arnprior. Connecticut is buried under a blizzard’s wrath, but way up north (here) it is uncharacteristically warm. And rainy.

A flash of intuition (or possibly delusion?) came to me…. This will be the weirdest winter on record. Places that usually get clobbered with snow will seem to miss most of it, but then Mother Nature will decide to be ‘fair’ and no one will escape at least one nearly crippling storm?